President Dina Boluarte, y su reloj de lujo, credit Wikipedia
Cakes, Quizzes, Corpses, by Bill Hartley
The current Peruvian Minister of the Interior Juan Jose Santinavanez Antunez was appointed in November of last year. He is the sixth Interior Minister in the current government; that’s an average of one every three months. So far it hasn’t been a good term of office for Senor Antunez. Rather in the manner of cricket averages the local press has been comparing his performance to those of his immediate predecessors. At the last count the murder rate on his watch was averaging six a day, more than any of the five ministers who preceded him.
Peru has around ten daily newspapers ranging from the sedate and serious El Comercio, with a heavy emphasis on politics, through the more popular such as La Republica and Peru 21, to the cheerfully downmarket El Chino. The latter appears in a format about two thirds the size of a British tabloid and as with most Peruvian newspapers they cram an awful lot into just a few pages. There’s usually a central spread of quizzes taking up more space even than sports reports and they also seem fond of cake recipes.
The mainstay of these papers, though, and indeed local media in general, is crime and corruption. Of this they have a great deal to choose from. Crime impacts on the daily lives of Peruvians in ways that would be unthinkable in Europe. A feature in El Republica referred to it as ‘the normalisation of the unacceptable’.
In January of this year El Chino reported that in the first twelve days of the month there had been 79 murders. A week later this had risen to 101. With some understatement the interior minister admitted that Peru is in the midst of a crime wave ‘the like of which we have never experienced before’.
Anyone who spends some time in Peru soon becomes aware that the victims are often ordinary working people. Extortion is big criminal business here and sending a message, say to the owner of a bus company, may be done by picking out a conductor for execution. Working in public transport can be a hazardous business. El Chino recently reported a murder on the Lima metro. Here a ticket collector was shot dead. The killer made his escape on the back of a motorcycle, the quickest way of weaving through the capital’s often grid locked traffic. The story was illustrated by a picture of the victim lying by his place of work at a station entrance, as commuters passed by. Over familiarity has desensitised the public who simply walk round a crime scene.
This graphic depiction of a murder is quite usual in the Peruvian media. Both TV and newspapers aided by CCTV downloads are prepared to show not just the aftermath but sometimes the actual commission of a crime. Suspects receive no anonymity and may be pictured as they are led away after a police raid, often wearing a tabard inscribed with the word ‘detendo’. In January, CCTV images shown on the evening news revealed how a message was sent to the owner of some trishaw type taxis. The killer or sicario as they are often described in the press, casually strolled up to a driver whose vehicle was at the head of a line waiting for business and shot him several times then walked round to the other side where his body had fallen, and delivered the coup de grace. Again, the victim was a poor guy in the wrong place. The incident, incidentally, was witnessed be several people who all fled for cover when the shooting started. The killings are often carried out by youngsters working for criminal gangs. They are cheap to employ and utterly ruthless.
Despite this mayhem the minister remains in charge, though in various national polling agencies, his disapproval rating stands at 78%. Much of the crime seems to be driven by protection rackets. Business premises are the most obvious targets and those who refuse to pay may find themselves experiencing what the authorities are now describing as urban terrorism, since there is nothing subtle or discreet about the way organised crime sends a message. A recent phenomenon mentioned in TV news (and captured on CCTV) is the use of hand grenades to bomb businesses. A clue as to where criminals might get hold of such a weapon came with the arrest of two junior army officers, accused of selling ammunition to a criminal gang.
In such a relatively poor country the visitor soon comes to appreciate how far the benchmark for lethal violence has been lowered and it is usually those with the least who suffer most. The press and television simply endorse how accustomed the public has become to this. In 2023 more than 18000 cases of extortion were reported, though the authorities concede that the actual number is probably higher. Nothing much seems to have changed. Indeed criminals have been posting online examples of what happens when someone refuses to pay. Out on the Pan American Highway a couple were travelling by taxi. The killers drew alongside; one filming as the other shot the male front seat passenger in the head, then did the same to the woman sitting in the rear. In 2022, Lima alone experienced 700 murders and more than half of these were believed to be contract killings. Unemployment and lack of opportunity makes crime attractive, particularly to youngsters.
The response of the authorities is little more than window dressing: increased police patrols and random stops of motor cyclists. There seems to be little attempt to focus on the underlying problem. Without a comprehensive programme to deal with poverty and deprivation there are always going to be ready recruits for criminal gangs. President Dina Boularte was at the Davos gathering recently where she talked up Peru as a place where corruption has been on the decrease. She explained that Peru had ‘recovered stability, politically, economically and socially’, though with magnificent understatement she conceded that there was a problem with ‘criminal organisations’. This was greeted with some surprise in the press. Reporting her speech Peru 21, reminded readers about the Rolex question. A press photographer who had often pictured the president happened to take a closer look at some of the images he’d captured and concluded that Dina owns a dozen Rolex watches. This, incidentally, was a president elected on a ‘clean hands’ ticket. She says the watches were given to her.
Peru’s newspapers will frequently illustrate the latest killing with a picture of the corpse lying in the road. One victim who had a lucky escape was featured under the headline ‘17 Bullets’. Here, a taxi driver had been intercepted and the paper reported that the would-be killer had fired shots in the air to scare off onlookers, before shooting his victim in the leg and arm. Not to be outdone in its coverage of crime, Peruvian TV seems to have almost instantaneous access to any CCTV images captured in the vicinity of a shooting.
Trujillo, a coastal city in the north-west of the country, aspires to being a centre for tourism. Among Peruvians, though, it is probably best known for what the papers are calling the ‘Terror of Trujillo’. Even the authorities now admit that the situation has moved from the criminal to what they are describing as urban terrorism. By January of this year the overwhelmed local police were being supported by the military. In Trujillo it’s not unusual for the pictures of gang leaders to be featured on the front page of newspapers. Peru 21 has featured a handy who’s who guide to the various gangs operating in the city. This may be useful when moving about the place, since each gang has its own logo used to mark out territories. For example the gothic style cross of Los Pulpos aka The Octopus of El Porvenir. A total of nine in all are competing for territory and influence in the city. Above the assorted logos the paper carried pictures of Jhonsson Cruz el cabecilla or boss of Los Pulpos and his rival Jimmy Bazan Valderrama capo of Los Compadres. There is no shortage of recruits for these gangs and whilst the political will to deal with them is lacking the public will have to be content with the sight of troops patrolling the streets; a purely cosmetic device which will do nothing to deal with the fundamental underlying problem. As for the police, it’s difficult to have confidence in them when a recent story featured a colonel who had been caught in possession of a suitcase containing 250,000 Peruvian sols (approximately $70,000).
When President Boluarte points to a recent absence of major corruption in government she may be a little premature. There is a scandal brewing at the moment which might have significant ramifications. In December last year Andrea Vidal, a 35 year old lawyer working in congress, was murdered. She was ambushed by three gunmen when leaving work in a taxi. The taxi driver also died. For some time the police maintained that the driver was the intended victim. To an outsider this seemed rather peculiar, though in a sarcastic comment La Republica noted that the police had made a ‘180 degree turn’ and now believe that Ms Vidal was the intended victim. This new theory may have been sustained by the numerous bullets which were fired at her, as opposed to the single shot which killed the driver. It turns out that she may have been the organiser of a prostitution ring inside congress where call girls were being recruited by politicians as ‘advisors’.
In its World Report of 2025, Human Rights Watch called corruption the driving force in Peru behind the deterioration of public services. Whilst there had been some signs of improvement the pandemic appears to have caused things to regress. The World Bank reports that as of May 2024 29% of the population is classified as ‘impoverished’. There seems little to feel confident about, since in the same month the World Bank also noted that 67 of the 130 members of congress were under investigation for corruption and other offences. Ordinary Peruvians are paying a high price for rotten government.
Why?